


Grounded by Gravity

by Hotalando



Series: Frozen Top [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, M/M, Memories, Mt. Shirogane | Mt. Silver, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotalando/pseuds/Hotalando
Summary: Finally at the summit, Green reveals what they have climbed up for. And while he's sitting on Red's shoulders to get it, Red realises what really matters to him. (Sequel to Rock Climb to an old Friend)





	Grounded by Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to [Rock Climb to an old Friend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20323114) (part of this series) but I hope you don't have to have read it.

## Grounded by Gravity

Calm and windy it is on the upper levels of Mt. Shirogane. The weather conditions are no surprise to them—Mt. Shirogane’s mood swings they’ve named them eventually—and so they might have brought jackets and proper shoes but nothing they wouldn’t wear down in the valley as well. Red’s body has synced itself with the temperatures and harsh winds of the mountain range and particular its summit, so the thin hoodie he grabbed from the pile of clothes he kept at Green’s house is merely an addup to his outfit, not a precaution due to the weather. 

Green, on the other hand, snuggles himself into that darn black jacket he still owns. That worn down stupid thing that looks stupid on him and Red doesn’t even know why Green even has something so stupid in his closet. Out of the male friends he has (left) after all, Green is _the one_ to take care of his outfits and looks. Well, Gold does like to invest too much time on looking cool but Green really worries about the style of his outfits and how they would suit the occasion. And oh Ruby—always so focused on his looks—

He halts. 

_Who are they even? _Has he ever even exchanged a word with that Ruby? And _who is Gold_? He keeps on hearing his name around town and even during the League broadcast and his mom likes to mention him a lot that Gold seems to be so present in his life but—he hasn’t seen him in… when? 

Suddenly, all his friends seem to be nothing but shadows of a past he cannot remember well.

Safe from that one who has never left his side since he does remember.

“What’s up?” Green turns around and frowns at him, “You’ve seen a Misdreavus?” 

Instantly Red loses touch with his thoughts, rolls his eyes and walks past his companion. Leave it to Green to set his mind straight again, to comb out all knots and take him back to the here and now. He loves that man, as partner and friend, as whatever you may call someone you’ve spent all your life with and cannot live without. 

“Seriously—if you’ve seen one it would be amazing. Most of them fled when the tourists came,” Green hastily adds but is soon distracted by the heaviness of Red’s abrupt reaction. “You okay?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine.” Red offers him a quick smile when their paces match again. “What’s it you’re looking for up here?”

“Oh,” Green blushes faintly, he hasn’t come up with what he’s looking for yet, “I… Nanami needs some silver nana berries. She tried growing her own but Pallet Town’s climate and ground aren’t right or something.”

“But there’s a tree outside Viridian Forest. It’s closer.” 

Internally, Green slaps his own face. “Yes but… those from the tree near the summit are bigger and carry more seeds. Besides, they’re sturdier and may adapt to Pallet Town better.”

“No one from Mt. Shirogane can adapt to Pallet Town.”

“You are an idiot,” Green counters and flicks Red’s forehead to punctuate every word. “Let’s just get those damn berries and get off from here again.”

When Red was still living on Mt. Shirogane, the silver nana berry tree was a great source for food for his pokemon and also himself. Silver nana berries contain a lot of protein, vitamins and mostly calcium, pretty much everything Red’s body needed the most in order to adjust to the summit life. This very tree’s fruits are abnormally rich of nutritional contents, probably due to their extraordinary huge size. Despite how many researchers Kanto has, barely any of them dedicated their work field to botany and the examination of the various berry trees. It’s a shame, considering how essential they are to raising pokemon and how healthy they are for humans as well. As far as he could tell, there is only Green’s sister Nanami who has a scientific interest in berries and other plants useful to pokemon. The Ookido family has always had special interests, Red wonders suddenly, and some of them he knows about Green are way too special.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Green snaps with reddening features, “Get out of your head and cut off that smirk. I need your help here!”

“Fine, fine… geez,” Red rolls his eyes but grins widely as he walks over to his partner at the foot of the large berry tree. “So what’s the plan? I didn’t bring any pokemon and I think you didn’t either.”

Green’s attention is drawn to one of the lowest hanging berries, if he was taller a few inches, he could pick it with his hand. “I get on your shoulders and snatch it off.”

“Yeah… or you could come back some other time with a Scyther ‘cause you don’t just snatch them off, man. Those twigs are very thick and strong. Pikachu had to improve his Iron Tail to get them off.” 

“Well how about you get ‘em since you’re the expert here,” Green remarks a little irritated. He can’t blame this on Red even if every cell of his body wants to, after all he has brought them up here only for, well, being here. 

Red raises his flat hands and shakes his head, “I’m only the assistance here, not the one who does stuff. This is your berry to pick.”

“Fine, give me your knife then,” Green orders and turns to the tree to look for possible spots to climb up on. As kids they used to climb all trees from Pallet to Viridian, a personal challenge none of them has won since they always climbed up together.

With an annoyed groan, Red pulls out the knife he’s always carrying in a leather bag on his belt and turns to hand it Green—who has already started to climb the tree and now clings to the trunk not even one foot above the ground. “Wow, this… this is beautiful,” Red presses out in mocked amazement, unfazed by the other man’s glare. “You go girl! I stay all the way down here and catch your great ego when you fall.”

“Oh shut up!” Green hisses, his cheek pressed against the tree as he tries to push himself up towards the top. “You’re the mountain idiot here, you better come up with some plan!”

“I could’ve taken you on my shoulders, no probs, man,” Red shrugs it off as this isn’t at all his fault. It isn’t. 

“Are you serious! I just said that but you had to brag about your cool mountain wisdom. Shit–” Very, very gracelessly Green slides down from the tree and barely manages to land on his heels. “Let me get on your shoulders and keep that dump hole of a mouth shut!” 

And so Red settles on a firm footing underneath the large berry, ready to be used as a ladder. Used to being used by Green for anything that would be needed, Red doesn’t hesitate this time again, to do what the other man asked. After all these years and adventures, up’s and down’s, close calls and new beginnings, they are so _used to _each other and deeply connected to another that none of them has ever or ever will hesitate to do the other a favour. Sometimes—in retrospective—Red would indeed question Green’s choices but the unlimited pure trust he feels for him has never let him doubt much. Despite that, it is hilarious the way Green crawls up on him and curses quietly so Red doesn’t hear while the berry has no mind in getting cut off the tree. 

While Green isn’t heavy and Red accustomed to carrying pokemon and baggage around, it’s the atmosphere of Mt. Shirogane that weighs down on him. It’s just them on the damn ol’ geezer of a mountain, the way it has been for so long and the way Red has always thought it would stay. Until their lives took on different paths and paces and adulthood overwhelmed them both like the Surf of a Blastoise. Leaving Mt. Shirogane has meant leaving that all behind—their times spent up here, his dreams and ambitions, his idea of himself, of the world, of them—and none of it has ever left the mountain tip. At some point it dissolved into the fog that lingers on the mountain range, lurking and awaiting them, _him_, to come back and join them in the density of their substance. He feels them, senses them creeping up to them, all of those memories he cannot see but notices their burning presence. And their will to extinguish his new self like a wildfire. 

Their gravity threatens him to give up his posture but who is he, to give up just like that? Give into their demands, since after all, he doesn’t want to stay on Mt. Shirogane. No matter how much of a home it is to him, no matter how loyal he is to these grounds, he has left behind the life of an isolated ignorant caveman. That is certain, his decision for leaving the mountain summit has happened purposefully and mindfully, free-willingly. Not due to failure, self-doubt or other weaknesses. He simply wanted to be part of the world again, _his world_, and advance to the next chapter of his life.

No doubt. The proof is sitting on his shoulders after all. 

Green may play a great role in his decision making most of the time but that idiot plays a great role in his life to begin with. Years of lonesomeness has taught him how wanting to have company is no weakness but a strengthening attribution. Which is needed in order to progress further and fully dive into his future. 

No more postponing. No more holding off. No more preventing the future from changing him. Isn’t that what he has concluded on after watching Green prospering in his new position as Gym Leader? When the idea of Green losing touch with him and their bond haunted him in his calmest nights? Falling behind his closest human friend, being forgotten by anyone who has ever meant something to him isn’t the price he wants to pay for the life atop Mt. Shirogane. It hasn’t and it isn’t and it will never be. 

But instead of living his new life down in the valley, Red sleeps it off and wastes his energy on nothing. Instead of being a part of Green’s everyday life, he’s a pain in the ass to him. An useless bag of rubbish that lies stains on the furniture. He has grown out of touch with his ambition, his willpower and ideologies—but why? To not lose what leashed him to Mt. Shirogane? What stuck him to his past? 

Suddenly his stance is shaking from a Green losing balance as the berry finally comes off the branch. The relief and surprise clearly showing on the other man’s face who is more thrilled over the achievement than he would willingly show. Red instantly feels his features joining in along with his mind that has a long awaited revelation. 

Although Mt. Shirogane is his past, it’s still a part of him wherever he goes and whatever he does. He doesn’t have to live two lives, he doesn’t owe it to honour the memories created up here in his daily life by not making equal new ones. But he owes it to himself to live on. And to Green, too.


End file.
